Venice

Sink and swim

JOHN BERENDT has done for Venice and Venetians what he did for Savannah, Georgia, in his book with the beguiling title, “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil”. Again, Mr Berendt uses a crime, in this case arson at the Fenice Theatre in 1996, to provide a strong narrative line, which is regularly interrupted by episodes of venality, vanity, snobbery and family feuding.

The style belongs to the New Journalism, as practised in Esquire and New York magazine; he worked for both. As Mr Berendt deploys it, highly coloured gossip takes precedence over verifiable fact. But the reading is easy, and the sales will no doubt be gratifying, although it will be hard for this second book to emulate the first, which sat for four years on the New York Times bestseller list.

For tourists, Venice is a dazzling monument to the past, especially to the economic power and artistic patronage of the Renaissance. For Venetians now, it is a small town (population 70,000) where there is not much to do, and always the same people to do not much with. This is a fertile breeding ground for something dear to Venetian hearts: conspiracy theories that feed on gossip and cynicism about other people's motives.

Mr Berendt has breathed deeply the air of the city of falling angels—the title comes from a sign on the steps of the Salute church in the early 1970s, when Venice seemed to be crumbling. He describes the Fenice fire, and the subsequent investigation that led to the conviction for arson of two electricians. He does this well, but he goes further, speculating that the electricians were “surrogates for others who remained in the shadows”. Like most Venetians, he takes nothing at face value.

Mr Berendt investigates the transfer to Yale University of important Ezra Pound papers, in the possession of Olga Rudge, Pound's former mistress who lived in Venice. In telling the story, he suggests that two prominent members of the English community in Venice, Philip Rylands, the director of the Peggy Guggenheim collection, and his wife Jane, might have acted against Rudge's best interests, and that they have been secretive. However, proof of their wickedness appears to stubbornly evade Mr Berendt.

The author thrives on conflict as well as conspiracy, and his account of a melodramatic struggle for power in Save Venice Inc, one of the fund-raising organisations that have done much to restore the stones of Venice, is splendidly entertaining and thoroughly damaging to all parties. This may be because for once he was conducting his research mainly in English; his Italian being, he says, only “passable”. This suggests that his accounts of lengthy conversations with Venetians may be somewhat contrived, if that does not sound too cynical.

Mr Berendt writes: “I knew in Venice I had been told truths, half-truths, and outright lies, and I was never entirely sure which was which.” He does not appear troubled by this. A broad-brush approach can be a good route for a reporter to the bestseller list, but it is difficult not also to feel a bat-squeak of sympathy for his victims. Whether it was his intention or not, Mr Berendt exposes Venice as a self-absorbed and heartless city.